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“Our cuts are unfair to women, BME, LGBT and young staff,” admits internal London Underground report

– By Tim Lezard The RMT has called on London Underground to withdraw its job cuts, reorganisation and ticket office closure plans after the company’s own impact assessment admitted the plans were unfair to women, BME, LGBT and younger staff. The firm’s …

The RMT has called on London Underground to withdraw its job cuts, reorganisation and ticket office closure plans after the company’s own impact assessment admitted the plans were unfair to women, BME, LGBT and younger staff.

The firm’s internal Equalities Impact Assessment found that key groups of staff will be hit hardest by the cuts:

Women – forced into lone working, left vulnerable to abuse and assault and disadvantaged by shifts in location and selection and promotion criteria.

Black and Minority Ethnic staff – disproportionately and adversely effected by the proposals with not a single tick in the “Positive Impact” column.

LGBT staff – left vulnerable to abuse and assault in “high risk” locations and where forced into lone working.

Younger people – relentlessly negative impact on apprenticeships, promotion prospects and again left vulnerable to abuse and assault through enforced lone working.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said:

“London Undergrounds own assessments show that their plans to axe nearly a thousand jobs, reorganise what is left and to close key services like ticket offices are relentlessly discriminatory and would throw into total reverse gains secured to push the tube forwards as an employer where equality of opportunity is taken seriously.

“Important groups of staff will be left vulnerable to abuse and assault as enforced lone working is bulldozed through and opportunities to advance though promotion and career development will be blocked off throughout the structures.

“We have yet to see any Equality Impact Assessment as it affects Tube users and we are demanding that documentation which will no doubt be just as damning, if not more so, in respect of women, people with disabilities and the BME and LGBT communities.

“The equalities impact assessments are a shocking indictment of LU’s cash-led cuts plans and are further rock-solid evidence as to why they should be withdrawn.”

Walton Pantland

South African trade unionist living in Glasgow. Loves whisky, wine, running and the great outdoors. Walton did an MA in Industrial Relations at Ruskin, Oxford, and is interested in how trade unions use new technology to organise.